Conventionally, a method is generally used where medical images such as endoscopic images are displayed on a monitor via video cables and a practitioner performs endoscopic surgery while viewing the image on the monitor.
In endoscopic surgery, it is usually the situation that, when the position where a practitioner stands changes depending on the medical case or the manipulation progresses, the optimal position of a monitor on which medical images such as endoscopic Images are displayed also changes accordingly. As a way of iealing with changes in an optimal position of a monitor, the number of operating rooms where two or more monitors are installed has been increasing.
Conventionally, when an endoscopic image is to be displayed on a monitor that a practitioner wishes to display it on in an operating room where two or more monitors are installed, generally a person other than the practitioner, for example, a surrounding nurse or the like being instructed by the practitioner, switches monitors. This is because the practitioner is unable to touch equipment in a non-sterilized area (unclean area) while he/she remains in a sterilized area of the operating room.
When monitors are to be switched, a surrounding nurse for example unplugs the video cable from a monitor that is difficult for the practitioner to see, and plugs the video cable into a monitor at a more convenient position to see. In this case, it is necessary to unplug and plug back in a video cable, and this is troublesome.
Alternatively, the same number of video cables as the number of monitors may be connected in advance, and a surrounding nurse performs an input selecting operation or the like of the monitors as instructed by a practitioner.
For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-125219 discloses a technique in which observation images of an endoscope are displayed on two or more, monitors in a synchronized manner.
Moreover, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-342400 discloses a technique in which a radio transmission circuit provided in a processor transmits by radio the subject images acquired by an image pickup device to an external monitor as a video signal.